


Within this one simple circle

by Code16



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alternate Universe - Prison, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Prison camp, Torture, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 16:01:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5791789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Code16/pseuds/Code16
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"John wakes up on the floor of a cell, feeling like he’d either been hit by a train or an avalanche. (Or the camp guards, extensively, for hours, but reality didn’t make for good metaphors). On the one hand, this really could have been expected, given it was hardly the first time. On the other hand, he’d really have expected them to shoot him in the head or beat him all the way to death, by now."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 5492

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: some mentions of blood, very brief reference to self injury and suicidal ideation.
> 
> I have no medical knowledge or experience nor anything resembling it.
> 
> This story is written as a work of fiction to have various elements I like/find compelling/etc. Prison camps in real life work not like this and are neither of these things.

John wakes up on the floor of a cell, feeling like he’d either been hit by a train or an avalanche. (Or the camp guards, extensively, for hours, but reality didn’t make for good metaphors). On the one hand, this really could have been expected, given it was hardly the first time. On the other hand, he’d really have expected them to shoot him in the head or beat him all the way to death, by now. 

The stone under him is cold. If he shifts against the floor, it hurts. (If he doesn't shift against the floor, it still hurts, but more like lying under the avalanche and less like getting suddenly stabbed). 

Training reminds him he needs to do an inventory of the damage, take care of what he can. For all the good it does, since even if he manages and endures moving, at best his supplies consist of barely drinkable water and the clothes he’s wearing. If the guards didn’t neglect to leave the water, this time. (Maybe that’s why they haven’t killed him, he thinks, again. Waiting for his luck to run out, to watch him die of pneumonia or infection. As he really should have already.)

“I hope I’m not disturbing you.” He must have missed the door opening. He berates himself for it, though it’s not as though one of the guards sneaking up on him would make much of a difference, at this moment. Then he catches up and registers the words. The guards  _ definitely  _ didn’t talk like that. Nor did the other inmates, though if someone has shown up to actually stab him, maybe they’re trying to be funny. He braces, which barely counts as movement but hurts anyway. There are worse situations to have a fight in, but this can probably fairly be said to be towards the bottom of the list.

The voice had come from the direction of the door, and he’d heard no movement since, even actually paying attention this time. He briefly entertains the thought that his reputation is sufficiently intimidating, even when the actual source of it is a step above unconcious on the floor. Then he notes that he’s really too indulgent with himself sometimes, grits his teeth, and turns his head enough to see who he’s dealing with.

The first thing he notices is the uniform. The entire manual labor outfit wears the same bright orange he does, the easier to hit them from the sniper towers if they try anything. Only insiders, the STEM contingent from the bunker, wear brown. (If he remembers correctly, if they try anything they get locked in and gassed through the vents. Or left to starve, if the anything had been particularly annoying.) In any case, an insider should certainly not be  _ here _ . 

The insider is still standing in front of the door. From his stance, he has an old injury of some kind. He’s also wearing glasses, carrying a bag in one hand and a roll of cloth under the other. The likelihood of assassination seems to be going way down. He should probably be glad about that.

“If I’m disturbing you, I can come back later. Or not at all, if you’d prefer. Though I hope you would not.” The voice, the words, are so out of place in their setting that John want to laugh. Which would be a particularly bad idea right now. 

“I’m a bit hard to disturb right now.” His voice isn’t at his best, but they never leave him unable to talk, probably in case they want to ask him something. The insider nods shortly, puts down his bag, and starts unrolling the bundle. It’s a mat, the kind they have in cells that are meant for living in rather than seeing if he dies in. 

“I can do my best to help you move if you’d like.” There’s still not much to like about moving, but decreased chances of pneumonia, not to mention being less  _ cold _ , are probably worth it. The insider is careful, seems to have some idea of what he’s doing. John kind of wishes he could pass out again, but he makes it to the mat. 

Once he’s as settled as is probably possible, the insider opens his bag. He takes out a bottle of water - with a straw, of all things - and offers it to John. John makes the executive decision that now is not the time to be looking a gift horse in the mouth, and drinks.

When John lets the straw go, the insider holds out a ration bar. Something else new - he gets food in this cell sometimes, but not particularly often. 

“Let me know if you want to finish the rest later, or more water.” John eats maybe half of it, the insider holding it carefully, not pushing it at him but not leaving him needing to chase it either. When he stops again, the insider tucks the remainder away and starts opening his bag. It’s a medical kit, not high end but neatly arranged and equipped. John raises his eyebrows, which mostly doesn't hurt. They’ve been careful about not hitting his head too much. 

“Do you know how to use that?”

“Field trained,” says the insider. He’s putting on gloves. Well, that’s not worse than he is, and with the benefits of reach and range of movement that isn’t agonizing. 

“I’m afraid I can’t offer any pain relief.” John doesn’t laugh, again. Whatever like that might exist in this place (the guards must have some for themselves, at least) it’ll be locked up tighter than the bullets. 

“Good,” he says instead. “Makes it less likely you’re a hallucination.” He’s not generally prone to hallucinations. Nightmares, almost routinely at this point, but when he’s awake it’s usually fine. But he knows the line between barely endurable and unsustainable. Something has to give, sooner or later.

“Do you have any particularly severe injuries that I cannot see and should attend to first?” asks the insider. So he’s going to have to do an inventory after all.

“I don’t think so.” No broken bones, no severe internal bleeding - he’s pretty sure at this point the guards are trained in this, pain that is incapacitating acutely while retaining the potential of sending him outside again before too long.

There’d been a whip involved this time, he remembers (where had they even  _ gotten _ it?). That must be why shifting his shoulders hurts worse than usual, why the insider is looking grimly at his shirt.

The insider offers him some kind of strap. John keeps his teeth together and refuses it. Things in his mouth and pain hasn’t been a good combination for him for a while. He’d rather scream in front of the insider, if it comes to it, than be dragged off by memory.

“So why did they let you in here anyway?” he asks instead, as the insider starts trying to work the cloth away. The insider grimaces briefly.

“Motivation.” Well. Yes, he can see how being up close and personal with what happened if the guards got too unhappy could certainly motivate one in the other direction. He supposes object lesson isn’t the worst job he’s ever had. 

John wishes the insider would say something else, because his brain’s not really up for coming up with more questions right now and the silence is leaving way too much space for noticing what’s going on over his skin. Or absence thereof.

“I’m curious to know what exactly it was you did this time.” He’s not sure if he said something or if this is just the insider and coincidence. “I’m aware that last time you interfered in a fight. Or intervened, perhaps I should say.” That was - one way of putting it. Then John’s mind catches up with him.

“How do you know that?” He can’t see the insider anymore, though his hands remain steady, sure and efficient. Even through the reawakened pain (well, reawakened is relative), John can feel that.

“One of my tasks involves the security cameras. Not the task that occupied me this morning.”

John considers this. “I walked out of line,” he says, finally. 

“For a reason, I presume?”  _ No, this is my idea of fun _ , John almost wants to say. Doesn’t.

“Is the railcart about to run over someone’s leg a reason?”

“I would say so, yes.” The insider has barely changed inflection, but John thinks he catches something behind the words. He tries not to think about it; instead, skips back again. 

“If you watch the cameras, do you by any chance know why I’m not dead yet?” Now the insider pauses for longer. At last, says,

“I believe it amuses them to see how long you will continue this.” John doesn’t shrug, because that would be even less advisable than laughing. He could tell them the answer to that himself, if they asked. This place will kill him, one way or another; he’d just as rather it be over work they don’t benefit off. 

John would kind of like to take a break with this subject, at this point. There’s silence again, disinclination to exposure versus the demand to get  _ away _ conflicting in his mind. But he’s getting so much showered on him already, what can it matter.

“Can you - talk, maybe? Anything, I don’t care. Just - not here.” He still can’t see the insider, and thinks the answer must be no, but then he hears his voice again, level, steady as his hands.

“Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. It is written as 3.14, but this is just the beginning; it keeps on going, forever, without ever repeating…” John lets himself drift, in as much as it could be possible when his body still more than aches, when his skin still feels partially on fire, pierced intermittently with flashes or waves of sharper pain. It still manages to be restful, somehow. At some point he realizes the flow of words has stopped being quite that again.

“I’m going to need you to turn over.” 

It goes about as well as could be expected. The insider is just as attentive as before, gentle, if that could apply. It hurts almost as much. When it’s done, John can also start seeing what’s going on, which honestly he’d just as soon have avoided. He could take the easy way out and close his eyes, but he realizes that he wants to watch the insider, now that it’s possible. He tries to keep his eyes on the insider’s face, breathes carefully. His brain, trained to automaticity, runs an assessment anyway.

It’s mostly about what could be expected, too. His leg is bloody, not in a familiar way, and he tries to recall why. Barbed wire, that had been it. They must have extra from the fence. One of the guards had wrapped it around his nightstick. (One of the others had plaited it into some kind of - he’s not even sure what to call it. But he’d stood behind John, so the insider must have taken care of that already.)

Thinking about it like that gives him a thought, finally. “Do you have a name?” It’s a joke, of course. Or an attempt at recognition, maybe.

“5492.” The insider’s voice doesn’t change, doesn’t shift. From this position John can see the camera in the cell too. “It appears once in the first 100,000 digits of pi, if you’re wondering.” He starts talking again after that, something about someone named Riemann. John watches his face, concentrated and restrained, eyebrows slightly furrowed over his glasses. Sometimes his hands, in the gloves, the fingers not their light blue anymore.

It’s John’s own hands that the insider goes to last. It’s mostly superficial - scraped palms, bruised knuckles. The blood on his wrists is mostly dry. They’d undone the manacles at some point, the chain to the ceiling. Did the rest on the ground.

When he’s completely finished, taken off his gloves and packed his bag, the insider settles next to him again. Helps arrange John in the most comfortable position allowed by the circumstances. Feeds him the rest of the ration bar and holds the water bottle again. Then he gets up and moves toward the door.

“I’ll be back after dinner to check on you. Please be careful until then.” He says it with his neutral intonation again, but John has to wonder if the security camera the insider mentioned had ever been the one in his cell. He remembers gouging his fingernails into his skin, striking his already bleeding hands against the floor. Wondering if he could bring his head down against the stone hard enough to kill him. He’s had some bad nights.

John swallows, holds back until the last moment. When the insider raises his hand to knock against the door, he looks at the other side of the cell and doesn’t clench his hands.

“Thank you.” He looks back at the insider almost immediately, wanting, somehow, to watch him leave. The insider flinches, tries to hide it in the next moment, and John suddenly remembers the way he’d said ‘motivation.’

“I’m sorry. I only meant-” The insider is facing him again.

“It’s quite alright. I’m - glad, if I’ve been able to offer you some ease.” Since it would have been effort he’s not entirely sure he had in him before he’d have been able to do almost anything for himself, and he wouldn’t have had stitches, or antiseptic, or the ration bar, or water that tasted like water and didn’t make him want to vomit, calling that an understatement would be putting it mildly.

John swallows again. “Until - then.”

“Until then,” says the insider, and knocks on the door and crosses through it when it opens and is gone. John lies on the mat and tries to hear his footsteps in the hall. 


	2. 0050

Harold leaves the cell, already planning for when he will enter it again. He can almost certainly spare another ration bar at dinner, as he now has at lunch, without impairing his own sufficient functioning to a dangerous point. He can definitely spare a blanket, if the guards let him take it. Maybe if he completes an extra module tonight, shows them their motivation is working. That this ‘treat’ will have the affective effect they mean to encourage and can’t get through granting him nicer clothes or special food or a book or game like the others. More even than being allowed to select inmates off the camera for favors. (If he completes his own module and fixes the multithreading bug that’s been holding back 3584 (Derrick) from two stations over, maybe they’ll grant him another one of those soon, as well. There’s an ex-student in block 7 who could desperately use new shoes, or at least socks.)

He glances at the camera in the corner as he passes it. If he has access to Derrick (3584)’s workstation, he might be able to arrange a few extra minutes in his own hidden directory. Enough to enter in his latest progress. If he’s careful enough with John (0050), he might be able talk him through getting into the wiring box at the Western fence. If his secret work isn’t discovered or exposed, if this doesn’t end with him being cut to pieces in a Block X room. Or both of them. 

(As always, that thought is nearly unbearable. Pulls the chain of arguments with it, again. The death rate of the camp. John’s chances of long term survival. The number of times John (0050!) could take another beating like this, another set of days in the cell like this, and come out not only alive but capable of surviving work, surviving general population. What freedom could do, for any of them. How little right he has to drag collateral damage into his ridiculous pipe dream projects. How pathetic his justifications are, his sophistic moral reasoning about willingness, about finding someone who would say it would be worth it. 

It doesn’t matter. He’s set in motion what he’s set in motion. He doesn’t try to deceive himself and pretend he might have acted otherwise, that his decision wasn’t a foregone conclusion as soon as the parameters had been known. That the person who would make that decision isn’t exactly who he is.)

He sits at his workstation. Thinks to consider if he might be able to trade his socks for John’s. They’re newer, considerably. Warmer. The bunker isn’t a comfortable temperature, but to a considerably lesser extent than the cell. The compromise to his own functioning state should be manageable. Suddenly and bizarrely, he wishes he could have stayed in the cell longer, could be there still. Pushes the absurd thought away. There’s work to be done. 

8204 (Marian) emerges from the break room. (8204, Marian Guinn. There were benefits to knowing databases. It had seemed a ludicrous risk to take, looking up names, but not one he’d been able to bear not taking. Even if it meant trying to repeat both the permitted and the forbidden in his mind, the only memory storage he had safe access to and the only protection against a slip that would be intolerable.) Sits down at her own station across from him. Looks at him over the screens.

“And where have you been?”

“I was arranged a more personalized break,” he says. Let her make of that what she might. What whoever of them might.

On the door to the room is a garishly lettered sign reading “Home”. The other insiders call it that, acidulously. He never has. 

One way or another, they won’t be here for much longer.

**Author's Note:**

> My resource for Finch's pi quote (which appears here slightly modified) was [here](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2558980/quotes).
> 
> My resource for the first 100,000 digits of pi is [here](http://www.geom.uiuc.edu/~huberty/math5337/groupe/digits.html). Please feel free to let me know if something is incorrect.
> 
> [My tumblr for these kinds of things](http://findundergrounddragoutofwater.tumblr.com). I love fandom social things, and anyone who feels like they might want to message etc me for any reason is encouraged to totally do so.


End file.
